With the images of flames spurting through the 18th-floor windows of the Galaxy Tower still raw in his memory, it’s a wonder the Long Beach firefighter’s language wasn’t blunter. If the apartment had been equipped with sprinklers, he told a reporter, there would have been a chance for its resident, John Crews, to survive.

Firefighters dread fire in an unsprinklered high rise. There is no alternative but to strap on heavy breathing equipment, which takes precious minutes, then, with elevators unsafe and out of commission, trudge up long flights of stairs dragging heavy hoses behind them.

At the Galaxy Thursday night, by working in shifts of 20 minutes or less, crews of firefighters knocked down the flames in only 40 minutes. But this was far too late for Crews, who had helped warn other residents, then made the awful mistake of going back into his burning apartment. Trapped by ferocious flames, he made his way to a balcony, where he screamed for help until, his clothes on fire, in desperation he jumped to his death.

The Galaxy, built in 1966, wasn’t required to have sprinklers. Neither are a number of high rises grandfathered when stricter rules came into effect. Some, residents, like those of the Villa Riviera, installed them anyway, at condo owners’ expense. Owners of the Galaxy apartments did not.

Should they be ordered to do it? It’s no secret how firefighters feel. This gets very personal. They can’t fight a high-rise fire from the safety of the ground below. They have to head into it, and, especially after the horrendous experience of 9/11, they know the risks.

San Diego is the latest big city to consider forcing the retrofit of sprinklers in the grandfathered high rises. The city ordered a retrofit of 155 high-rise buildings in 1988, but granted waivers to 14 residential buildings because of financial hardship. Then last year a grand jury report recommended they be retrofitted as well. But given that the only occupied nonresidential high rise in San Diego without sprinklers is the San Diego City Hall, that isn’t going to happen soon.

The grand jury report was useful, though, if for no other reason than it helped clarify some issues. Retrofitting a high rise, according to the city’s fire chief, could cost about $2 a square foot, plus possible costs of a standby pipe and fire pump of about $200,000.

Long Beach officials come up with similar figures of roughly $5 a square foot. The Long Beach City Council’s Public Safety Committee will take up the issue Tuesday at 1 p.m. and the arguments will be familiar.

It is one thing to mandate sprinklers for new buildings or even retrofitting of older commercial buildings, but high-rise condos and other apartments are another matter. Residents don’t usually want to pay or can’t afford to, and public officials are reluctant to try to force them.

Of all the fatal fires in this country, more than 80 percent are residential. But few occur in high rises. We have to admire owners who extend themselves financially to make their homes, high rise or not, as fire-safe as possible. And we have to sympathize with firefighters who look with dread at tall buildings without sprinklers.

There may be no political solution to some of the risks. But members of the council committee are wise to take up the issue, insist on aggressive enforcement of the fire code, and do what they can to minimize those risks.